Once upon a time there was, in chaos hung a void,

Two creatures, known as Life and Death, this chaos they destroyed.

Life was a woman, fair and kind, granting souls to all

And Death these souls he took away, to bring to the Eternal Hall.

One day Life looked away from her work and witnessed the actions of Death.

Kindly and cautiously he guided her gifts, and gentle care he used.

Her heart then warmed for the reaper's kind, and approached him with a silent breath.

"Thank you for caring for my creations," she said, and the Reaper turned, confused.

"Care?" he asked, his voice unsure. "I take your gifts from their frames.

I ease their travels, I soften their worries, but where do you get these claims?"

Life laughed, a sound like glass, and flowers around them bloomed. "Their bodies wither, and decay.

Their actions start to slow. No greater kindness could I ever conceive, than to help them on their way."

First stanza of "Life and Death", author unknown

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It was Reed McHannon's first day of high school, and he was terrified.

The brown hallways were far too long, something smelled, and the kids giggled as he walked by. Although most of them were looking at their phones, Reed was certain that they were laughing at him.

He looked his outfit up and down surreptitiously, trying not to draw attention to the action. He was wearing an orange and white striped shirt, jean shorts, and gray and navy tennis shoes. Overall, it was a pretty average outfit, all things considered. Even with the thirteen-year-old's overactive imagination fueling his anxiety, he couldn't think of anything wrong with it, and he took a shaky breath.

His mom patted him on the shoulder. "Reed? Is everything all right?"

Startled out of his thoughts, he glanced up at her. "What'd you say?"

She chuckled quietly. "Are you feeling all right? School can be a bit scary if you're not used to it."

Reed battled between rising to the challenge and confessing his anxiety to his mom. A pair of particularly pretty girls wearing skirts walked by, and his decision was made. Throwing a bit of a swagger into his step, he said with false confidence, "Yeah, I'm doin' fine. Ya know me, I'm not scared of nothin."

Ms. McHannon looked confused for a moment, and then noticed the girls. Smiling, she asked, "Are you sure? I could go get your stuffed alligator if you want."

The girls he'd had his eye on tittered as they walked by, and Reed glared pleadingly at his mother. "Moooom! Why'd you do that!?"

She ruffled his brown hair fondly. "I'm a mother, Reed. It's part of my job."

He sulked for a few seconds, but consoled himself that he probably would never meet those girls again. His mood plummeted as he realized he would probably never meet those girls again, and that they wouldn't talk to him if he did. Ms. McHannon patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it, honey. You're too young to be flirting anyway."

Nodding his agreement, he trailed behind briefly. When he thought she couldn't hear him, he muttered under his breath, "Won't stop me from trying."

She called back to him airily, "I heard that!"

A few minutes later, they arrived in front of a classic classroom door. Fake wood, with a narrow vertical window two-thirds of the way up and a horizontal handle. A sign at the top read in bright blue letters, "Math is cool, yo!" It featured a picture of a skateboarder with sagging jeans, a backward baseball cap, and purple shutter glasses. He was making the peace sign with one hand and holding a too-small skateboard under his other arm. A small diagram marked the peace sign as an acute angle.

"Mom," Reed began, but she shot him down before he could continue. "Not a word, hun. This is a nice school, even if their decor is a bit..." She trailed off as she appraised the skateboarder, and didn't finish. Instead, she simply sighed and opened the door, gesturing for him to go on through.

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It was actually a rather pleasant classroom, contrasting the horrendous door leading into it. With pale blue walls and unclouded windows, the ceramic floor was primarily hidden by the thirty or so desks lined up in neat rows, to say nothing of the teenagers chatting to each other about whatever it was that teenagers talked about.

While Reed considered himself a teenager, he'd actually only turned thirteen a few weeks ago, and he was still running high off the birthday money he'd received from his aunts and uncles. The shoes he was wearing were actually a present from his grandma Mildred. It seemed to Reed as though everyone had some ancient relative named Mildred floating around in their family somewhere - at least his grandma was pretty cool. Well, she was really old and smelled kind of weird, but she gave great gifts.

A sharp rapping drew Reed's attention to the chalkboard and the stern-looking woman standing in front of it. She had a sharp hairstyle, sharp glasses, sharp pink nails, and her glare was razor sharp. "Hello everyone, and calm yourselves. Take a seat wherever you want, and for the love of God, Johnson, stop putting gum on the bottom of your desk." A taller boy near the back of the classroom surreptitiously scooted down further into his chair, peeling a sticky wad of chewed-red gum from somewhere beneath his desk.

Ms. McHannon spun Reed around, gazing warmly into his eyes. "Honey, I get that high school can be a little scary. I still remember when I went, after all. But you're going to be fine. High school's a bit strange, but you get used to it."

Reed smiled wanly, wishing that she wouldn't leave. She mussed his hair up one last time and headed out the door, leaving him with an encouraging smile that did nothing to assuage his worries.

Tapping her podium again, the teacher made sure she had their attention (and for the most part, she did) and turned to her chalkboard, writing so quickly that Reed thought the chalk would start smoking. "My name is Mrs. Devonshire. You may not call me Miss and you may not call me Devonshire. You shall address me as ma'am and nothing else, am I clear?"

She was interrupted by the classroom door flying open, and everyone spun in their seats to look.

It'd been hurled open by quite literally the prettiest and strangest girl Reed had ever seen. She had incredibly pale skin and a mess of curly blond hair, but her cheeks were tinged by a flush from her mad sprint through the hallways. With a black tanktop and a green blouse over it, her worn jeans were stained by dirt and grass. Her eyes didn't match, though - one was a piercing green, and the other was a pale white. A wide smile was pasted on her face as she panted, and she leaned against the doorframe for a moment before walking in. "Wow," she said breathlessly. "That's a long hallway."

She was barefoot, Reed noticed. A fact that Mrs. Devonshire noticed immediately. "Pardon me, but what is the meaning of this!?"

Before the girl could answer, two people entered behind her. They blasted the newcomer into third place on Reed's 'weirdest person' list by a long shot.

The man on the left wore the blackest cloak Reed had ever seen. It didn't seem to obey physics very well at all, floating spectrally and writhing out of the way of the open door. The barest amount of his face that Reed could see was incomporably pale, with gaunt cheekbones and pale eyes. He glided more than walked in, and then stepped aside to make way for his companion.

She was beautiful in the same way that a wild mountain range was, not that Reed had ever visited one in person. She wore a lot of gold and jade-colored clothing, in a clearly foreign and yet familiar style. Her hair was composed of thick vines, multicolored flowers blooming exotically all over it and sweeping down to her waist. Her skin was flush with the essence of pure optimism and innocent pleasure, and it made Reed's heart skip a pace.

They were so different from each other that it almost hurt to look at, Reed thought.

Mrs. Devonshire seemed to agree, albeit for different reasons. Pacing forward from behind her podium, she demanded, "What is the meaning of-"

A balding man skidded through the door, wheezing and sweaty in his musty suit. Mrs. Devonshire stopped dead, confused and furious. "Mr. Lacoste? What-"

The man sucked in a breath and gestured to the newcomers. "This is Mr. Death and Mrs. Life, and their daughter Dream. They're enrolling in Clearview as of... good grief, I need to start jogging... The point is!" He added with a finger pointed into the air. "They are enrolling with the direct sponsorship of-"

The lady interrupted with a kind smile. "Dear Brendan, may I perhaps speak for myself?" Her voice was melodious, like birds singing, and it made everyone in the room relax unconsciously. Hesitating, the fat man shot a glance at the cloaked person and nodded, pulling his sweaty collar away from his suit.

Dipping her incredibly fancy and probably very expensive dress, the lady curtseyed. Rising to her full height, she smiled warmly at everyone. "Hello, children. My name is Life, and this is Dream." The young girl waved excitedly, nearly bouncing on her heels, and all of the teens present awkwardly waved back.

Mrs. Devonshire's forehead was creased with such force that Reed thought it might beat an elephant hide in a wrinkles competition. "Mr. Lacoste, what on earth is going on!?"

The cloaked figure spoke, in a slow and deep voice that chilled everyone's bones and made their eyes droop in a sudden burst of tiredness. "This is our daughter. Her name is Dream." He paused, and the cloak's darkened hood swept across the room. "We have decided to bring her to this school, in hopes that she may one day blend in with humans." After a short moment, he added, "I am Death."

Reed decided that maybe high school was a little too weird for him. Then Dream made eye contact with him and smiled more brilliantly than the sun, and he decided that he could deal with weird if he got to hang out with this girl.